barryem, pwalker8: After thinking about it a bit more I agree with you, it's probably still true that most people who write books don't earn money from it. Fanfiction writers obviously belong to this group, they write knowing that they will never be able to publish commercially (barring big rewrites). If it's admirable to be motivated purely by love of writing, fanfic writers surely are the most admirable writers of all!
So, what would be the results of barryem's suggestion?
- If we apply this to already published books, a lot of books will become available for free for everybody (good), but we pull out the rug under people and businesses who have made investments under the current copyright regime (bad). If we only apply this going forward, neither of these things happen.
- Fewer books will be written, and significantly fewer books will be published or otherwise made available to readers.
- There will be some increase in the number of new free books, as some people who publish commercially today will continue writing, and will choose to give away their books.
- The quality of new books will go down, because very few people will spend money on professional editing, copyediting, illustrations etc. for books they have to give away.
- The (slow, gradual) improvement we see in more diverse voices getting to tell their stories in print will slow down, and the least privileged people will fall silent first. (A couple of examples of this issue: We need diverse editors and Jeanette Ng's acceptance speech for the Astounding Award (then named John W. Campbell Award))
- A lot of people will lose their jobs, both full time authors and most of the people in the publishing business.
So all in all, I see several serious drawbacks, and a few minor advantages.
Nothing prevents people from publishing books for free now, and some people do -- not just fanfiction, but also original fiction. I've read two books which were published for free first, and later published commercially, They were both good enough the first time that I chose to spend money on the commercial version, and they were both improved in the commercial version. (
In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan and
Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh, both are highly recommended if you read fantasy! I'm eagerly awaiting
another which I've read for free, and will buy the moment I can!)
If we ever get to a post scarcity society with universal income, we should reconsider copyright laws, But then we'd need to reconsider a lot of laws and customs about property and income. (I also think we should change a lot about how this works today, but that's a discussion for the Politics and Religion forum).